Smart Contracts Need Smart Corporate Lawyers

Law360 (February 7, 2018, 5:33 PM EST) -- With the development of advanced distributed ledger technology and coding comes the potential for deployment of “smart contracts.” These programs autonomously effectuate and enforce contractual rights and obligations without the need for further human intervention. Strictly speaking, a “smart contract” need not be a legal agreement at all; fundamentally, it is computer code that automates performance of an already existing contract. Yet many smart contracts — such as the “Ricardian Contract” and other “smart legal agreements” — may constitute self-effectuating contracts in software, potentially in a...